1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to an automatic pull pin fastening apparatus, and especially to such an apparatus used for combining a plurality of plates of different specifications, the fastening apparatus has a functional capability of quick arranging and pulling a predetermined amount of pull pins at a time, pull pin fastening can be completed easily in a very short time, number of workers can be reduced to the minimal, and cost of production can be lowered.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A pull pin 1 is comprised of a shank 12 with a head 13 slipped over by a sleeve 11 having a flange 111 (referring to FIG. 1). When the pull pin 1 is connected to a plurality of plates 91, 92, a hole is provided extending through both these plates 91, 92 lapped one over the other; the sleeve 11 of the pull pin 1 is placed in the hole to have the flange 111 of the sleeve 11 abutted on the plate 92, then the shank 12 of the pull pin 1 is forcedly pulled to make the head 13 extrude the sleeve 11 (referring to FIG. 2), the sleeve 11 thereby expands and deforms, the flange 111 is clamped on the plates 91, 92 to make this connection into effect. The shank 12 is broken on the end at the flange 111 of the sleeve 11 by resisting of the flange 111 and the external pulling force. Thereby, the shank 12 and the head 13 of the pull pin 1 can be removed from the sleeve 11 separately (referring to FIG. 3) to make the pull pin 1 connect with the plates in a neat and beautiful appearance.
However, the plates have to be drilled in advance before fastening the pull pin 1 to make connection of the pull pin 1 with the plates. That is, connection of the pull pin i with the plates certainly requires the processes of drilling, inserting, abutment, pulling and removing broken shanks etc., it is very hard, as is the case of conventional screw delivery mode with a track, to make connection of the pull pin 1 in an automation way. And more, if the plates to be combined are for different uses, connection areas of them will be very different, amount of connection areas for different plates is not same, in the industry therefore, pull pins have to be disposed, abutted, pulled and dealt with for waste material removing one by one, man power is necessary and thus cost of production is increased. Thereby, conventional pull pin fastening operation contains the big trouble of time and manpower wasting, and this is the motive of the present invention to finding a way to solve the trouble. The inventor of the present invention developed the automatic pull pin fastening apparatus based on his specific experience of years in design, study and development of automation equipment.
The main object of the present invention is to effect the automatic pull pin fastening operation in the mode of pushing pull pins by compressed air to increase the efficiency and decrease the cost of production.
To this object, practically, a feeding unit, a delivering device, a positioning board, a transporting device and a stretching device are mounted on a machine which is the automatic fastening apparatus. The machine is further provided with an air pressure unit and an oil pressure unit to supply the required dynamic force.
Wherein, the delivering device includes a tidying unit and a plurality of pin picking units and a distributing unit. The tidying unit arranges a plurality of pull pins in a line and delivers them to the pin picking units which each can choose a single pull pin to be collected and stored, and the delivering device presses air to supply it for a plurality of delivering pipes to send by pushing a predetermined amount of pull pins to the positioning board for using of the transporting device at one time, this can have the function of supplying each time with predetermined amount of pull pins to shorten the operation time for delivering pull pins.
Assuming that the positioning board is a plane board, it is provided with a plurality of pin picking holes, positions of the pin picking holes are in corresponding to connecting holes provided on the plates to be combined, in order to dispose the pull pins in the predetermined amount on the positioning board in advance to render the transporting device to transport the pull pins at one time. This can reduce the operation time for pull pin delivery.
The transporting device includes a transporting seat and a top board having therebetween a control board and a base board having a plurality of clamping claws, a pneumatic elevator cylinder is provided between the top board and the base board, a pneumatic cylinder for the claws is provided between the control board and the base board to allow the pneumatic elevator cylinder to move the claws. The pneumatic cylinder for the claws can also control opening and closing of the claws, thereby the transporting device can take, transport and place the pull pins in the predetermined amount at one time. This can increase the automatic fastening operation.
The stretching device is mounted on the machine, and is comprised of a pin receiving board and a bottom board, a middle board having thereon a plurality of elastic clamping sets is provided therebetween. The bottom board and the middle board are connected to an oil pressure stretching cylinder; by pressing opening and releasing closing functions of the clamping sets, the oil pressure stretching cylinder can simultaneously pull the pull pins of predetermined amount when it moves the middle board downwards, thereby, a function of combining a plurality of plates at one time can thus be provided, this can shorten processing time of combining the plates.
By the nature of connecting a plurality of plates at one time with the positioning board, the transporting device and the stretching device, together with the function of pushing the pull pins of predetermined amount by air pressure from the delivering device, the fastening apparatus can randomly change the positions for fastening of the pull pins of predetermined amount at any time in pursuance of the requirement of the plates to be combined. This provides excellent mobility of production, and can get rid of heavy burden of requirement of changing equipment for different plates to be combined and thereby can effectively lower the cost of processing.
The present invention will be apparent after reading the detailed description of the preferred embodiment thereof in reference to the accompanying drawings.